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HomeMy WebLinkAboutProposal_to_NPC_MRC_DAVIS_2025Davis, NPC MRC Proposal 9 June 2025 1 Proposal to North Pacific Coast Marine Resources Committee Natural hazards research on the Olympic Coast – advancing science and training students June 9, 2025 Davis, NPC MRC Proposal 9 June 2025 2 Proposal submitted to North Pacific Coast Marine Resources Committee (NPC MRC) June 9, 2025 1. Name of the project: Natural hazards research on the Olympic coast – advancing science and training students 2. Lead organization and Contact: Dr. Elizabeth Davis Cell: (765) 480-7098 elizajdavis@gmail.com 10,000 Years Institute PO Box 1081 Forks, WA 98331 Phone: (360) 301-4306 3. Start and end dates for your project: August 1, 2025 – June 1, 2027 4. Deliverables: 1. MRC Newsletter article (by June 1, 2027) 2. 5 quality photos (By June 1, 2027) 3. End-of-project presentation to MRC (By June 1, 2027) 4. Map of landslides dated (By June 1, 2027) 5. Spreadsheet of landslide ages (By June 1, 2027) 6. Map of coastal retreat at Rialto Beach (By Dec 31, 2026) 7. Report to Olympic National Park regarding erosion near pit toilet (By Dec 31, 2026) 8. QTS student-made deliverable(s) (e.g., a poster) (By Dec 31, 2025) 5. Project staff: PI: Dr. Elizabeth Davis, Quaternary field geologist (resume available) Expertise: Elizabeth received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2024, focusing on earthquake and landslide geology. Part of her research was funded by the NPC MRC and focused on characterizing a low-elevation marine terrace and landslides at Rialto Beach, for which she led field research trips of up to 15 people. While at UW, she developed and instructed a new field geology module for the Department of Earth & Space Sciences undergraduate field camp and served as a primary mentor for three undergraduate researchers. Since then, she developed and carried out a natural hazards research project in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, funded by an awarded postdoc from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She also worked in cultural preservation at Duwamish Tribal Services in Seattle. Elizabeth has received several awards for research and teaching, including the two most prestigious graduate awards in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at UW: the David A. Johnston Memorial Award for Research Excellence (for her MRC- supported work at Rialto Beach) and the Howard Coombs Davis, NPC MRC Proposal 9 June 2025 3 Award for Excellence in Teaching. She is excited to affiliate with the 10,000 Years Institute in Forks, Washington for this project proposal. Collaborators: Dr. Kathy Troost, L.G., L.E.G., UW emerita (resume available) Jill Silver, 10,000 Years Institute Team of University of Washington ESS students and alumni including Bering Tse, Marquis Richardson, Heather Maran, Chelsea Bush, Katelyn Card, Mary Alice Benson, and Elise Freeman 6. Partners: U.S. Geological Survey: Dr. Brian Sherrod and Dr. Alex Grant for conducting ongoing earthquake and landslide projects elsewhere on the Washington coast. We will continue to partner with them to dovetail our field and analytical efforts. The USGS has historically provided the funding for radiocarbon ages at Rialto Beach. As the USGS funding situation is currently changing, they may continue to provide funding for radiocarbon ages, field help, and scientific mentorship, as available and appropriate. 10,000 Years Institute: Jill Silver for providing an institutional home for this project, including office space and computer access. Olympic National Park: Matthew Dubeau for providing our research permits and connecting us with other scientists. CRESCENT CASE: Madeleine Lucas and Quileute Tribal School: Alice Ryan for coordinating, funding, and operating the Quileute Tribal School student internship program to which we propose to contribute. Washington Sea Grant, Dr. Ian Miller for collaborating in shoreline retreat measurements and analysis. 7. Geographic Area: Olympic National Park Pacific coast at and just north of Rialto Beach 8. Permits: We will renew our research permit with Olympic National Park to collect samples for radiocarbon analysis and tree cores. 9. Project Narrative (up to 5 pages not including attachments): a. Abstract The Olympic coast rests in the largest earthquake data gap in the Cascadia subduction zone. This gap in geologic information about past earthquakes is large enough that it limits understanding of earthquakes on the entire subduction zone, in addition to restricting understanding of earthquake effects for local communities. The proposed projects chips away at closing this data gap by continuing to date coastal (possibly co- seismic) landslides. The second objective is to continue our program monitoring the rapid coastal retreat at Rialto Beach. The third objective is to strengthen our community connections by newly partnering with an existing geoscience education program at Quileute Tribal School to mentor high school students’ research projects. Davis, NPC MRC Proposal 9 June 2025 4 Our approach builds off our earlier research at Rialto Beach, funded by the NPC MRC, UW, and the USGS, in which we dated several landslides, measured coastal retreat, and dated a low elevation marine terrace to 200–600 years old. This project is a science project with an ocean (coastal) education component. The research will have direct impacts on hazard estimates on the U.S. west coast, including the National Seismic Hazard Map, which influences building codes nationwide. b. Background and context Figure 1 (at left). Map of earthquake data in the Cascadia subduction zone. Northwest Washington is a critical region for the Cascadia subduction zone. Prior research about Cascadia earthquakes has largely relied on the way land-level change and tsunamis are recorded in broad, muddy tide flats and salt marshes (e.g., the down-dropped ghost forests in marshes of southwest Washington). These large marsh environments mostly do not exist on the Olympic coast of Washington, which has led to a 140-km data gap on the coast between Copalis and Neah Bay (Fig. 1). This gap is so large that it limits our understanding of the variability of earthquakes on the entire subduction zone. Locally, it means that models of earthquake impacts on Olympic coast communities are created using data from elsewhere. For example, there is a hypothesis that parts of northwest Washington uplift during earthquakes instead of down-dropping. This possibility – which cannot be evaluated because of the data gap – would have dramatic impacts on hazard assessments for local communities. It would also influence tectonic models of the entire subduction zone and the National Seismic Hazard Map, which controls national building codes. In our prior work at Rialto Beach, we developed new ways to begin closing the data gap that use the region’s characteristics – rocky unstable headlands and low, sandy terraces – as strengths, instead of weaknesses. Davis, NPC MRC Proposal 9 June 2025 5 Our strategy has two components. First, large bedrock landslides are abundant on the coast and are more likely to be co-seismic than other landslides (as demonstrated by Katelyn Card’s MS project and work by our USGS partner Alex Grant) and are relatively easily dated by comparison with low-elevation sandy terraces (as demonstrated by PI Davis’s Ph.D. dissertation). We are dating these landslides so that they may be more confidently attributed (or not) to Cascadia earthquakes and used to constrain estimates of shaking strength. Second, low-elevation sandy terraces like the terrace at Rialto Beach may have been formed by co-seismic uplift. Field mapping – including monitoring the shoreline retreat-- is the key to evaluating this possibility and has been done at Rialto Beach during our prior MRC- funded projects (most recent update available in Davis Ph.D. dissertation) and further north by our USGS partner Brian Sherrod. The Olympic coast is a dynamic environment: rapid coastal retreat means that the geologic data buried in the slope are annually removed by erosion. Since 2018, we have observed over 5 meters of coastal retreat at one site at Rialto Beach. This rate of retreat necessitates timely collection of geologic data to understand the history of landsliding and the magnitude of changes occurring on the beach. The shoreline morphology measurements also contribute to understanding how extreme storms, climate variability, and long-term sea-level changes affect Olympic coast beaches. Our results have been written, presented, and are publicly available through the University of Washington in three M.S. projects and one Ph.D. dissertation. Our landslide age results are now available online through the Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center (CRESCENT) paleoseismic database. We have delivered several public and academic talks on this research. The stratigraphic framework we developed at Rialto Beach outlined in Davis’s dissertation has established a new baseline for analysis of terraces and slopes on the northwest coast of Washington and we are in the process of preparing this as a manuscript for peer-reviewed publication. c. Six Benchmarks Marine Habitats: We will log the retreat of the sandy coastline at Rialto Beach to understand and evaluate erosion. Understanding the geology of these features and dating them will provide long-term context regarding this type of erosion on the northwest coast. For example, our prior findings have shown that retreat and erosion at Rialto Beach is new within the past 600 years. These findings have implications for the characterization of the variability of natural marine sedimentary processes – and their implications on habitat mosaics – over the past millennia. Sound Science: We will collect and present high-quality data regarding coastal geomorphology, geology, sediments, and coastline change using established protocols for collecting data. The results will contribute to peer-reviewed publications and be input into public community databases (e.g., CRESCENT data viewer). Education and Outreach: We will involve high school students with scientific research projects, directly linking education with coastal science. Another goal is to prepare a useful report for Olympic National Park, also relevant to this benchmark. Coastal Communities: The education component in Objective 3 will include education relevant to natural hazards. Davis, NPC MRC Proposal 9 June 2025 6 d. Project Objectives Objective 1. Map and date Olympic coast landslides in support of earthquake research Figure 2. Large landslides are abundant along the northwest coast of Washington. Left: map of large coastal landslides and terraces that may have been triggered by earthquakes. Right: contour map showing one deep-seated landslide at Rialto Beach that we have already mapped and dated. Katelyn Card’s MS project showed that this landslide is currently stable and likely needed an earthquake trigger to occur. This objective will map and date 1–3 more landslides along the Olympic coast of Washington. We will focus on landslides immediately north of Rialto Beach in Olympic National Park. Identifying which landslides may have been triggered by which earthquakes can help constrain the amounts of shaking that occurred during past earthquakes. Very few landslides in Cascadia have been found to overlap in time with subduction zone earthquakes—the landslides we have dated at Rialto beach are some of the only possible such landslides across the entire subduction zone. Therefore, it is critical to test if these results can be replicated further north along the Olympic coast. Objective 2. Monitor coastal retreat at Rialto Beach We have monitored coastal retreat at Rialto Beach since 2018. Our results show that a low-elevation beach terrace has been retreating rapidly. The current retreat is approaching a National Park pit toilet at the northern end of Rialto Beach. We propose to continue the coastal retreat monitoring and to produce a focused report for Olympic National Park (ONP) on the erosion rate at the pit toilet site, estimating a timeframe for how soon the retreat will threaten the pit toilet and identifying alternative locations where erosion appears to be proceeding more slowly. We propose two site visits per Davis, NPC MRC Proposal 9 June 2025 7 year to accomplish the monitoring objectives. Retreat measurements can be collected in an afternoon. Objective 3. Mentor Quileute Tribal School intern projects related to objectives 1 and 2 The Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center (CRESCENT) operates an educational program, the “Cascadia Culture and geoScience Exchange Program” (CASE), at Quileute Tribal School (QTS). The main activity of the program is a week-long earth science course taught at QTS by University of Washington graduate students. A smaller component of the program is a summer internship program for the high schoolers: CRESCENT pays high school students to complete small science projects and provides funding for project costs, like supplies and field trips. This year, the CRESCENT UW team is hoping to strengthen the program by involving student projects with active research projects like ours. The proposal is to link the QTS summer internship program with the research projects proposed in objectives 1 and 2. This is a natural link because of the shared project location and because the UW team is interested in additional scientific support. Coordinating together will have the result of involving the high school students with active, impactful research projects, add capacity for the UW team, and benefit our research projects by involving new students with new ideas. This objective has no additional cost to the MRC; the costs incurred during student mentorship (e.g., for mentorship time, field trips, and project supplies) would be covered by CRESCENT. Objective 3, student mentorship, will be a value-added benefit of continuing the regional research projects outlined in objectives 1 and 2. e. Timeline and deliverables Objec&ve 2025 2026 Deliverables General Spring 2027: - MRC newsle3er ar5cle - 5 quality photos - End-of-project presenta5on to MRC 1. Map and date Olympic coast landslides -Field work (5 days) -Sample prep and submission -Prepare map - Field work (5 days) - Sample prep, submission, interpretaEon Winter 2026: • Map of landslides (goal of 1–3 landslides) • Spreadsheet of ages that will contribute to peer-reviewed paper and CRESCENT paleoseismic database 2. Monitor coastal retreat - Field work (2 visits) - Establish contact with ONP regarding the pit toilet - Field work (2 visits) - Finalize report to ONP Winter 2026: • Map of coastal retreat • Report to Olympic NaEonal Park regarding erosion near pit toilet 3. Mentor QTS intern science projects Mentor 3 students: Timeline to be arranged with Alice Ryan and CRESCENT CASE mentors TBD Summer 2025: • Students will produce an appropriate deliverable (e.g., a poster) in coordinaEon with Alice Ryan and the other CRESCENT CASE mentors Davis, NPC MRC Proposal 9 June 2025 8 f. Methods, procedures, and equipment Objective 1, Map and date Olympic coast landslides. For this element we will map more landslides, collect samples of wood in the landslides for radiocarbon dating, and collect tree cores from trees atop the slides. Field mapping includes traversing the slopes and gullies adjacent to landslides. Dating will be accomplished through a combination of radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology. Radiocarbon dating is done on samples of wood collected from the landslides (Fig. 3)—trees buried in the landslide grew prior to the landslide and provide a maximum (oldest) age for the slide. Figure 3 (at left). Radiocarbon sample from Rialto Beach, before (left) and after (right) cleaning. Samples will be prepared (washed and picked free of rootlets and other material) at UW and submitted to NOSAMS laboratory in Woods Hole for age analysis. Dendrochronology consists of collecting cores from living trees with an increment borer—trees growing atop a landslide grew after the landslide occurred and provide a minimum (youngest) age for the slide. Figure 4 (at left). Chelsea Bush and Varqua Tavangar core a coastal Sitka spruce at Rialto Beach, 2019. We will follow the procedure established by Bush in 2019, mounting the cores and counting the rings under 10x magnification to determine the age of the tree. If funded, we will select landslides to target for mapping and dating from an existing LiDAR database we have created (Fig. 2). An estimate that 1–3 landslides can be mapped and dated in the requested amount of field days (14), since methods have already been established and tested at Rialto Beach. We intend to publish the ages of the landslides and have them input into an existing open source paleoseismic database, which currently hosts the landslide age data from our prior work at Rialto Beach. We will continue collaborating closely with our USGS colleagues Brian Sherrod, Alex Grant, and Sean LaHusen. Davis, NPC MRC Proposal 9 June 2025 9 Objective 2, Monitor coastal retreat at Rialto Beach. In order to continue monitoring of the coastal retreat at Rialto Beach, we will continue methods developed during prior years of monitoring (funded by the MRC). Monitoring involves manually measuring the distance to the eroding edge from trees that we have identified and high-resolution surveys with GPS. If this proposal is funded, we will continue two surveys per year. Objective 3, Mentor QTS intern science projects. Mentoring student projects will be done in coordination with the CRESCENT education team (led by Madeleine Lucas) and Alice Ryan. The program and its educational methods were developed through the UW Riverways Program. The CRESCENT team an Alice Ryan will be involved in the student projects; students have already been identified. Our role will be to provide technical mentorship and expertise in Summer 2025 (2026 TBD) to involve the students in relevant research related to our existing work at Rialto Beach. The methods involved in the student projects will be specific to the projects developed by the students. g. Extent or impact In the short term, this project is designed to continue small parts of our existing research projects on the Olympic coast in a way that adds capacity to other groups. Our hope is that our mentorship of QTS student projects will contribute our regional geology expertise and add capacity for the existing mentorship team. Our preparation of a coastal retreat report for ONP will provide targeted information about the necessary timeline for re-siting the pit toilet. The continuation of the erosion monitoring program will maintain continuity to our 7-year dataset, at the time when the low-elevation terraces is nearing the toe of the slope. In the longer term, the continued collection of earthquake and landslide data on the Olympic coast will contribute to Cascadia-wide efforts to characterize earthquake impacts in the subduction zone. The results collected here have the potential to reframe understanding of the behavior of the subduction zone, changing regional hazard estimates. h. Future plans Closing the earthquake data gap in northwest Washington will require several years of full-time work. Our hope is that funding of this MRC proposal would allow us to continue the collection of the most time-sensitive data in the interim to maintain the continuity of the datasets and continue to grow local partnerships until we secure funding to develop a full research program. Last year, this project was funded by the USGS as a 2-yr Mendenhall postdoctoral fellowship awarded to PI Davis. Unfortunately, that funding was eliminated in federal cuts before work could begin. We are actively involved in seeking replacement funds for a full-time research program. In the meantime, this proposal is scaled so that part-time work can continue even in the absence of other research support. Several partners are interested in the future success of the project, including the USGS Earthquake Science Center and the Washington Geological Survey. Davis, NPC MRC Proposal 9 June 2025 10 10. Project Budget Category Detail MRC Request Matching ContribuVon (not required) Total Salaries and Benefits or hourly wages Smpend, Elizabeth Davis, Ph.D. (to cover 14 days field work and parcal report-prep cme) $ 5000 CRESCENT to fund cme spent mentoring students $ 5000. Supplies/Equipment Misc. field supplies (e.g., field notebook, plascc baggies, sharpies) $ 200 $ 200. Travel Mileage (4 trips Seadle-coast, est. 420mi round trip at $0.655/mi) Ferry fares (4 trips at $40 rt.) Meals (28 person-days at avg. 79/day) $ 1011 $ 160 $ 2212 $ 3383. Contracted services OPTIONAL* Radiocarbon analyses (6 samples at NOSAMS academic rate, 344ea) $ 2064* To be simultaneously requested from USGS $ 2064.* Indirect expenses Overhead waived at 10,000 Years Insmtute for office space and computer access $0 $0 Totals $ 10,647. * Funding for radiocarbon samples will also be requested from USGS and other sources. In the past, the USGS has annually funded samples from Rialto, and is interested in doing so again. However, given the circumstances, their ability to do so at the time we collect the samples is not certain, hence the additional request here. This amount represents an ideal minimum for the 2-yr project and is the least time-sensitive part of the proposal – MRC may reduce the number of samples funded as needed to fit into budget constraints. If radiocarbon sample costs were removed, the total project cost would be $8,583.